Resolution of the Central Committee of the R.S.D.L.P. (Bolsheviks) Adopted April 21 (May 4), 1917

Published:PravdaNo. 38, May 5 (April 22), 1917.

      Published according to the text inPravda.Source:Lenin
	  Collected Works,

      Progress Publishers,1964,

      Moscow,Volume 24,

      pages201-203.Translated:Isaacs BernardTranscription\Markup:B. BagginsandD. WaltersPublic Domain:Lenin Internet Archive

      1999

      (2005).You may freely copy, distribute,
	display and perform this work; as well as make derivative and
	commercial works. Please credit “Marxists Internet
	Archive” as your source.•README

Havingconsidered the situation which has arisen in Petrograd
      after the imperialist, annexationist, and predatory Note of the
      Provisional Government of April 18,1917,and after a
      number of meetings and demonstrations of the people held in the
      streets of Petrograd on April 20, the Central Committee of the
      R.S.D.L.P. resolves:

1.Partypropagandists and speakers must refute the despicable
        lies of the capitalist papers and of the papers supporting the
        capitalists to the effect that we are holding out the threat
        ofcivil war.This is a despicable lie, for only at
        the present moment, as long as the capitalists and their
        government cannot and dare not use force against the masses,
        as long as the mass of soldiers and workers are freely
        expressing their will and freely electing and displacingallauthorities—atsuch a momentany
        thought of civil war would be naïve, senseless,
        preposterous; at such a momentthere must be compliance
        with the will of the majority of the populationand free
        criticism of this will by the discontented minority; should
        violence be resorted to, the responsibility will fall on the
        Provisional Government and its supporters.

2.Bytheir outcries against civil war the government of the
         capitalists and its newspapers are only trying to conceal the
         reluctance of the capitalists, who admittedly constitute an
         insignificant minority of the people, to submit to the will
         of the majority.

3.Inorder to learn the will of the majority of the population
         in Petrograd, where there is now an unusually large number of
         soldiers who are familiar with the sentiment ofthe peasants
         and correctly express it, a popular vote must at once be
         arranged in all the districts of Petrograd and its suburbs to
         ascertain what the attitude is towards the government’s Note,
         what support the various parties enjoy, and what kind of
         Provisional Government is desired.

4.AllParty propagandists must advocate these views and this
         proposal at factories, in regiments, in the streets, etc., by
         means ofpeacefuldiscussion and peaceful
         demonstrations, as well as meetings everywhere; we must
         endeavour to organise regular voting in factories and
         regiments, taking care that order and comradely discipline
         are strictly observed.

5.Partypropagandists must again and again protest against the
         despicable slander spread by the capitalists alleging that
         our Party stands for a separate peace with Germany. We
         consider Wilhelm II as bad a crowned brigand meriting
         execution as Nicholas II, and the German Guchkovs, i.e., the
         German capitalists, just as much annexationists, robbers, and
         imperialists as the Russian, British, and all other
         capitalists. Weare againstnegotiating with the
         capitalists, we are for negotiating and fraternisingwith
         the revolutionary workers and soldiers of all countries.We are convinced that the reason why the Guchkov-Milyukov
         government is trying to aggravate the situation is because it
         knows that the workers’ revolution in Germany is beginning,
         and that this revolution will be a blow to the capitalists of
         all countries.

6.Whenthe Provisional Government spreads rumours about utter
         and unavoidable economic chaos, it is not only trying to
         frighten the people into leaving the power in the hands of
         this Provisional Government, but is also vaguely, fumblingly
         expressing the profound and indubitable truth thatallthe nations of the world have been led into a
         blind alley, that the war waged in the interests of the
         capitalists has driven them to the brink of an abyss, and
         that there is really no way out except through the transfer
         of power to the revolutionary class, i.e., to the
         revolutionary proletariat, which is capable of adopting
         revolutionary measures.

Ifthere are any stocks of grain, etc., in the country, the new
      government of the workers and soldiers will know how to dispose
      of them too. But if the capitalist war has broughteconomic ruin
      to a stage where there is no bread at all, the capitalist
      government will only aggravate the condition of the people
      instead of improving it.

7.Weconsider the policy of the present majority of leaders of
         the Soviet of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies, of the
         Narodnik and Menshevik parties, to be profoundly erroneous,
         since confidence in the Provisional Government, attempts to
         compromise with it, dickering over amendments, etc., would in
         fact mean only so many more useless scraps of paper and
         useless delays; and besides, this policy threatens to create
         a divergence between the will of the Soviet on the one hand,
         and that of the majority of revolutionary soldiers at the
         front and in Petrograd and of the majority of workers, on the
         other.

8.Wecall upon those workers and soldiers who believe that the
         Soviet must change its policy and renounce the policy of
         confidence in and compromise with the capitalist government,
         to hold new elections of delegates to the Soviet of Workers’
         and Soldiers’ Deputies and to send to that body only people
         who would steadfastly hold to a quite definite opinion
         consonant with the actual will of the majority.